Friday, September 22, 2017

Written by Jon Williams

Like so many
authors, Ken Follett didn’t originally have his heart set on a career writing
fiction. Born in Wales before moving as a child to London, he studied
philosophy in college, he started out working in journalism. The tide began to
turn a few years later when he moved into a publishing career and began writing
fiction of his own. After a number of novels were released under pen names,
Follett finally found success under his own name with Eye of the Needle in 1978. A World
War II spy thriller, it won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and it set Follett
on the path of an internationally bestselling author.

He followed
that novel up in 1979 with Triple, another spy novel, this time
set in the Middle East of the late 1960s. Indeed, Follett would become known
primarily as a purveyor of fast-paced spy novels full of action and intrigue.
Novels in this vein include 1985’s Lie Down with Lions, 1991’s Night Over Water, and 2001’s Jackdaws. And although it’s actually
a true story, 1983’s On Wings of Eagles fits into much
the same mold, as it explores a daring rescue mission to liberate two men being
held in an Iranian prison. It was adapted into a
miniseries in 1986.

However,
this type of action thriller is not all that Follett writes. Although many of
his novels were based around various points of 20th century history, in 1989 he
planted his feet more firmly in the realm of historical fiction with The Pillars of the Earth, which
explores the building of a cathedral in a fictional English village in the
Middle Ages. It became his bestselling work to that point. After a long layoff,
Follett finally followed up The Pillars
of the Earth in 2007: World Without End revisits
Kingsbridge Cathedral more than 150 years later, during the time of the Black
Death, through the eyes of the descendants of characters from the original
novel. And now, at long last, there is a third installment in the series. A Column of Fire, which came out
last week, brings the cathedral and its surroundings into the Elizabethan era.

With that
novel just coming out, hold lists may be long, for the initial installments as
well as the latest release. However, you can direct impatient patrons to check
out another series of historical novels from Follett. This trilogy began with Fall of Giants in 2010, following a
number of characters through such events as the Russian Revolution and World
War I. Follett wrote the novels in this series much more quickly than the
Kingsbridge novels; the second, Winter of the World, was released
just two years later, in 2012 and deals primarily with World War II. The third,
Edge of Eternity, came out in 2014,
and carries the families through the Cold War, from the 1960s through the
1980s.

Whatever
he’s writing—whether it’s spy thrillers, historical fiction, or even
non-fiction—Ken Follett’s work is always popular with patrons. Make sure you
have his latest hit novel on your shelves for them to enjoy, and SmartBrowse
his name on our website to find all we have to offer.